!•] 



THE LIMIT OF TREES. 



:-i7 



ill the latter country, the farthest outposts of the forests towards 

 the north consist of scraggy birches, which, notwithstanding 

 their stunted stems, clothe the mountain sides with a very 

 lively and close green ; while in Siberia the outermost trees are 

 gnarled and half-withered larches {Larix dahurica, Turcz.), 

 which stick up over the tops of the hills like a thin grey 

 brush.^ North of this limit there are to be seen on the Yenisej 

 luxuriant bushes of willow and alder. That in Siberia too, the 

 large wootl, some hundreds or thousands of years ago, went 

 farther north than now, is shown by colossal tree-stumps found 

 still standing in the tundra, nor is it necessary now to go far 



-i: 



'%.: 



M^ 







LIMIT OF TREES IN SIbERIA. 



At Boganida, after Middendorf. 



south of the extreme limit, before the river banks are to be 

 seen crowned with high, flourishing, luxuriant trees. 



The climate at Maosoe is not distinguished by any severe 

 winter cold,- but the air is moist and raw nearly all the year 



' On the Kola Peiiinsul;i, and in the neighbourhood of the White Sea, 

 as far as to Ural, the limit of trees consists of a species of pine {Picea 

 ohovuUi, Ledeb.), but farther east in Kaiuschatka again of birch. — Th. 

 von Middendorff, Reise in dem ausserstm Norden uml Osten Sibiriens, 

 vol. iv. p. 582. 



^ An idea of the influence exerted by the immediate neighbourhood of a 

 warm ocean-current in making the climate milder may be obtained from 

 the following table of the mean temjieratures of the different months at 

 1. Tromsoe (6^° 30' N. L.) ; 2. Fruhulni, near North Cape (71° 6' N. L.) ; 



